Dark (2013) was released on the Xbox 360. At the time, it got terrible reviews. But the game is now available on steam, where it… also has terrible reviews. And I don’t get it, I think the game is a lot of fun. It’s definitely a game from 2013, with clunky character models and dialog that doesn’t match the lip syncing, but I don’t think that puts it outside of the norm for other games at the time. Maybe the plot was too dumb for most people. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for video games with a vampire protagonist.

Anyway, the game is about some random dude (you) who wakes up to discover he was bitten by a vampire and has no memory prior to waking up. In this world, if you kill the vampire who turned you, you’ll turn back into a human. So your goal is to find the vampire who turned you, kill him, and become a human once again. But since you have no memory, you have no idea who to hunt down. Some helpful vampire (and owner of a vampire night club) says “you know… it was probably ______, go kill him.” So you do, but you’re still a vampire. So you go back to the night club and she says “huh, well… maybe it was _______.” So you go kill that vampire. Nope. that wasn’t it. So then you go back to the night club and she goes “well, you could try killing the head vampire, since most of the vampires around here were turned by him.” And you can see where this is going. It’s a level-based game with a boss fight at the end of each level.

But since this game came out in 2013, it’s heavily inspired by what was considered “cool” at the time. Or maybe what was considered “cool” 10 years prior… Because this is what the main character (and the night club) look like:

Awesome, right? Baggy jeans, a hoodie, it’s almost like you can hear KoRn being played at the club (or whatever songs were on the Underworld soundtrack).

As for gameplay, it’s actually a stealth game. Think the stealth in the Dishonored series where the main character is able to “blink” (teleport) to a nearby spot. This game allows you to transform into a cloud of bats to teleport to a nearby spot. You can also unlock other abilities to help you sneak past guards or silently kill them. As with most stealth games, if you get spotted it doesn’t take many bullets to take you down. But I’m the type of person who reloads a save if I get spotted in a stealth game so that didn’t bother me (you can save anytime). There were a lot of complaints online about how you can’t really fight your way out once spotted though.

Part of my enjoyment of the game could’ve come from the fact that I played on Easy mode. I don’t have the time to waste getting frustrated with video games anymore; I want to enjoy myself. And it’s a single player game from 10 years ago, who am I trying to impress? I still got spotted plenty of times though, so I don’t think Easy mode was too easy. Also, there’s a guide on steam that tells you how to spend your upgrade points so you don’t waste your time. That helped a lot too.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this game. It’s available on Steam and regularly goes on sale for $3 and I think it’s easily worth that price. I actually enjoyed it so much I bought the DLC when it went on sale for $2, even though that was just a single extra level (that takes place after the ending). The main game has about 7 hours of gameplay and the DLC adds another hour. It isn’t a major commitment.